Home
by angiesvoice
Summary: Home is the place you miss when you leave. She had to learn that. Now, she has run to find her home. Swan Queen AU. Read and review, please.


**Hello, Friends, I have returned. **

**I apologize for my long absence. I'll try to update my other stories. I've just lost all literary inspiration. But, I wrote this for a class a few months ago. This is AU.**

**The original title of this story was "Llunga," a Bantu word for someone who forgives abuses the first time, tolerates it the second time, but never a third time. Mostly introspection, not much dialogue. Swan Queen.**

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**Regina's POV**

The bitter air invaded the warmth of the thin, fall coat wrapped around my body and disrupted my senses with the vicious, winter evening. I shifted on the cold bus bench and looked around the abandoned street. Signs of human life were few and far in between. On the cracks of business windows you could see the epicenter of where each bullet failed to shatter the surface. Flickering street lights bounced across brightly painted graffiti.

I wondered about the artists who left these wonderful pieces of art. I say artist because that is exactly what they are. Most will tell you that they are just hoodlums looking for trouble, but I knew otherwise. I don't blame them, the artists. I sympathized with their plight. I understood the hardships they faced. The names of fallen comrades and friends decorating the dilapidated brick walls were acts of mourning, not vandalism.

Where was she?

For a moment, I regretted the tattered knapsack filled to the brim with the few belongings I could call my own. I missed the warmth of my bedroom and sound of the Yankees game playing downstairs. Things were getting better. I felt it. Or, so I hoped. Sometimes, happy memories of my parents overshadowed darker times. But, the sting of their verbal and physical abuse quickly returned.

_You're filthy. _

Some days, the house didn't feel so cold. I don't mean this in a physical sense. The biting glares and crisp sneers froze the blood in my veins. The nights when they left bread and cheese outside of my door were good. The echo of my own body's acidic secretions gnawing at the thin lining of my stomach kept me awake at night. But no one noticed. They couldn't see the dark circles under my eyes because _her_ baggy, black sweat shirt hid the curving of my flesh over my rib cage and every part of my body. I felt lucky that no one cared; the humiliation would only serve to mar my body more than I had already in the dead of the night.

_Inhumane._

I told them the truth when I was 16. The sting of her Princeton University class ring broke the joy in my heart and the split the skin above my lip. He dabbed Neosporin onto the 1 inch scar on the corner of my lip but he didn't stop her the next time. When I was 17, they realized that this wasn't just a _phase_. She was filled with anger and he was complacent to his dear wife.

But, Mother had plans for me. My own desires did not matter. Love was weakness. The love I feel for _her _and the uncontrollable love I felt for Mother. I couldn't help myself. She was my mother and she played me like a fiddle and I cried for her tender touch, but it never same. She would have what she wanted. I was to be her prodigy. And, the world would not look to someone with my _proclivities_. So, those had to go. I wanted to escape, but there was never a right time to run. Until now.

In the distance, a car's tires screeched like a bat. The noise crept into the sky and dissipated, leaving the night as silent and bleak as it was before. You couldn't see the stars here. The congestion of the city frightens the luminescence of the stars and they cowered behind the moon, seeking solace in its protective glow. There were stars at home.

_Depraved._

My eyes caught the glimmer of light across the reflective surface of the balloons decorating the candlelight vigil just parallel to my spot on the bench. A mother's script engrained the name "Henry" onto my heart. I did not know Henry, but I could feel each tear and sob burned into the cards and stuffed bears hoping for his survival. I said a silent prayer for the young stranger who shared a name with my father, but I could never be sure if there was a God to hear my pleas.

_Sinner._

Down the road, soft footsteps padded along the concrete. They grew closer. Shadows framed the face of the mysterious intruder, the intervals of dim street lights refusing to shed proper light. I was alone and fear bled from my veins. I didn't want to die on the bench of this dingy bus stop. The miniscule bit of optimism renting space in my heart wanted to believe this person was not a threat, but I could only give so much of myself to trust other people.

_Whore._

I slowly stood, turning to prepare myself to run, even though I knew the knapsack containing the few items I called my own would weigh down my escape. With pride, I would die with my keepsakes strapped to my back like a shield. The stranger grew closer, stopping underneath the final flickering street light. But, this was not a stranger.

Her hair was longer, less kept. Long ago, perfectly curled hair glistened in the light of the noisy hallways of a small town high school with a population of under 600. Now, it hung simply on her shoulders, blonde tresses blowing in the wind with no regard. The dip of her shoulders was different. Like life sat on them and pulled her closer to the ground. Physically, she was not the same woman, but that did not matter to me. The comfort I found in her arms paralleled their righteous anger and hatred towards the person that I was becoming.

I took off, at full speed, ramming into her body, my legs wrapped around her hips and arms pulling her close as possible. I inhaled the vanilla shampoo and mango body wash that mixed to make the scent that helped me sleep at night. She struggled to hold my body, but her arms tightened around me nevertheless. We were finally together.

"Regina,"

_Filthy. Inhumane. Depraved. Sinner. Whore._

My name sounded so sweet on her lips. Like, my name was the most beautiful word in the English language, ambrosia on her lips. She was the only one I ever wanted to hear say my name. I knew that the words that followed would never hurt like theirs did, time and time again.

"I missed you."

Some twenty minutes later, we were sitting in a rundown diner, a burger and fries steaming in front of me but I wasn't eating. I couldn't bear to pull my sweaty palm away from hers. I feared that without her tender grip that I would fall back into the crack of their whip and all of this would have been a dream. They would drag me back and my freedom would be lost because a small town doctor would quickly label my love as a disease and I would never see the woman I love dearly or the light of day again. No GPS would direct the crusaders of the gay agenda to my release and rescue in the psych ward of a little hospital equipped to handle sports injuries and camping accidents.

She was never one for words. Even behind eyes black as coal, I could see her smile. And, it made my heart flutter in the most cliché of ways. I did not know if this sentiment would live on years from now, but the feeling of absolution rolling flush against the blush of my chest was worth the risk the future posed.

"You should eat."

Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from hers and picked up the greasy slab of meat with both hands. My fingers sank into the buns but I only managed a few bites. My stomach couldn't hold the food and I immediately felt the gastric protests. The waitress with ruby red streaks in her hair looked at the thinness of my body protected by a red jacket and nodded, as if she understood. I wished she didn't have to.

I squeezed her hand tight as we crawled up the stairs to her apartment. The building was ancient, the wood creaking and the doors singing high pitch tunes as the occupants moved wearily. The hall smelled of alcohol and cigarettes. I didn't mind. For some reason, I felt safer. The dilapidated building told stories of adversity and strife so beautiful that I compared notes even as a new chapter of my own began with no end carefully planned out.

"The bedroom is through that door. You should rest. I know the bus ride was long."

I didn't bother turning on the light. My body plopped down onto the small outline of the bed and I was met with darkness only moments later. I didn't dream often and they were never pretty sights. My subconscious has a penchant for manifesting in the twists and turns of my body in the night. Suddenly, ripped from the bruising grasp of my personal demons, heavy hands pressed my shoulders into the lumpy bed. Panic crawled up my throat and a howl ripped through the room and peeled the paint from the walls. My body thrashed violently, wanting – needing to escape my confines. I didn't even hear the voice calling my name because the desolateness of pure terror inhibited all of my senses.

"Regina, it's me. It's only a dream. You're safe."

The combined scent of vanilla and mango wafted into my nose and something clicked. I ceased struggling and blinked my tear stained eyes open to the dimly lit room. Her dark eyes relaxed my muscles and I sunk back into the mattress. The silence offered the chance to spill my blood of secrets and pain but I remained tightlipped. She did not pry. She simply fell to my side and wrapped her arms around my midsection, snuggling her nose into my neck. My heart still raced but the sound of each thud broke the stark stillness of the room. I don't know how long we stayed like that.

"I know it's not much…" Her voice trailed. A police siren wailed in the distance.

I wanted to protest, to tell her that she was enough, but I knew the words would never compute. The home – the hell hole – I came from made the life I would have now look like heaven. God sat perched behind the bulletproof Plexiglas of the bodega window and his disciples entered each day with oversized jeans hanging below their waists, exhausted, ready to spend the fruits of their labor. Ice pops soothed babes to sleep in hot apartments until the next day began anew. I wanted to praise and worship her efforts because she cared infinitely more than _they_ ever could.

_Filthy. _

The one bedroom apartment was not much, but I could come and go as I pleased. I would have my freedom back. It was enough. I felt safe here.

_Inhumane. _

The fridge was scarce but eggs and bacon and sliced turkey made a better meal than stale bread and cheese. I wouldn't have to plead with my stomach for reprieve. It was enough.

_Depraved. _

The lights flickered, but the glow of the strip club light illuminating the room scared away my demons. And though my night terrors would persist as they continue to live and breathe miles away from new home. It was enough.

_Sinner. _

The pressure of her arms on my ribs hurt, fresh bruising painting my skin like a Picasso, but I knew the pain would fade and the warmth of her skin against my own would create new memories. Her hand would only raise in love. This would be enough.

_Whore._

The feeling of Emma's lips against my own sparked a new wave a joy in my soul and I relaxed into her body. Her arms gave me the strength to take on the world. If _they _– if my parents – could never accept my love for her, I didn't want them in my life.

I rolled my body into hers and drifted back into the first peaceful sleep of a very long time.


End file.
